'Inheritance' by Ali Soleil

You ride along the cracked sidewalk, straddling your rusted Schwinn like some rodeo hero. Your daddy doesn’t know you took his gun, now does he? He cleaned it up good after your brother’s accident, as if anyone but your mom and dad really believe it was an accident.

Clever girl, offering rum refills like your brother used to do on the nights he snuck out. You watched your father’s sad watery eyes follow you, your mother’s wagging tongue flick out like a lizard’s and taste the rim of the glass.

They’d be awake by noon so you have to hurry. But what are you thinking? Riding down the middle of town during the holiday parade with that rifle and shovel strapped to your back like a farmer, like Annie Oakley?

Coming through, you shout as you pedal past all the parade goers.

No one cares about you. They are too busy listening to the high school band play the fight song. You are thirteen and never expect to get to high school.

You ride out through town not once sitting down to coast, the parade noise nearly faded now. Minutes later, you cruise into a little cemetery.

Zigzag past a giant oak tree, pedal hard up hill, turn left, turn right, go past the angel statue, and there’s the tombstone. You drop your bike, walk the rest of the way.

Hello, brother.

You get right to business because anyone who might catch you is at the parade, which won’t last forever. You dig and dig. The ground is mushy, heavy from rain. Once the hole is big enough, you place the rifle inside, cover it with dirt and get the idea to pray—but you stopped asking why months ago. So instead you just say, Amen.

You take an apple from your pocket. You bite hard, the skin bursting beneath your teeth, juice dribbling down your chin. You wonder about the worm that had been in an apple your brother ate and how he confessed it sometimes felt like he had worms in his brain. Like what if the worm he ate had actually worked its way into his brain and that’s what made him do the things he did?

You remember how the other day you thought you felt a worm crawling around your head ear to ear.  You tilt your head to your shoulder, tap the ear on top. Nothing falls out.

You look to the sky, hoping for a sign, for answers, but all you see are storm clouds rolling in.